


Crown Tundra

by MintyElectronica



Series: Powerverse [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Characters Turned Into Pokemon, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fetch Quest: The Fanfiction, Fluff, Legendary Pokemon, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Present Tense, Quests, Romance, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintyElectronica/pseuds/MintyElectronica
Summary: When Bill catches wind of strange legendary pokémon in the territory of the Crown Tundra, he rushes off to investigate, dragging the cold-hating Lanette along with him. Very quickly, he learns that some legends are best left alone. And by that, I mean Calyrex kidnaps Lanette, locks Bill in his flygon form, and sends Bill and his kadabra off on a glorified fetch quest across the tundra. And surprisingly, despite the presence of legendary pokémon right in front of him, Bill throws every chance to study them aside, all for the sake of saving his partner from a frigid end.(Archive of a Tumblr RP arc. Please see the notes at the beginning for a full explanation.)
Relationships: Mayumi | Lanette/Sonezaki Masaki | Bill
Series: Powerverse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053947
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note, but the following (as well as other works in the Powerverse series) are archives of posts from the Tumblr blog, The Pokédex According to Bill ([@bills-pokedex](https://bills-pokedex.tumblr.com)), posted here for easy reference. For more context about the two characters involved here, you'll probs want to hit that blog up. Otherwise, the tl;dr version is that Bill writes advice posts that are then edited by Lanette (LH here) and posted for the viewing public, and antics like this are pretty commonplace. Also commonplace: Bill and Lanette bantering in footnote-style dev notes. 
> 
> Finally, all of the asks were sent in by actual readers of the aforementioned blog. A huge thanks goes out to everyone who submitted these asks and helped craft the story. Literally none of this would exist without you, and I love and appreciate every one of you eternally. :D <3
> 
> Hokay, folks! You're caught up! Have fun!

The first hint Lanette gets that trouble is coming is the fact that Bill is unusually excited that morning. Oh, don’t get her wrong. Excited is Bill’s default setting, and Lanette knows this. But it’s the electrical difference between a battery and a downed power line right now. There’s pacing, there’s handwaving, there’s fast chatter, and it takes a moment for Lanette to realize he’s actually trying to talk to her.

“I’m-I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “What?”

Bill pauses, a welcome relief in all that time. He looks at her as if only just now realizing she’s there, and then he pushes the tablet he’s placed on the kitchen table a little closer to her coffee.

“Crown Tundra,” he repeats, slower this time and with a touch of child’s exasperation. “It’s a part of Galar we haven’t been to. Look!”

He swipes, and Lanette watches photos flash across its screen. Snowy fields full of cryogonal and jynx. Ancient ruins with a bronzong floating by. A weathered statue of two pokémon Lanette doesn’t recognize. And then, a map of Galar, with the southern part of it circled.

Lanette picks up the tablet at this point. “Didn’t you say your family was from there?”

“No, south, on the other side of the tundra.” Bill waves his hands in the air, as if to dispel that thought. “But that’s not important! Lanette, reports have been pouring in about this place! Rare pokémon that have no business being in Galar. Rare pokémon difficult to find _in_ Galar. And this!”

He swipes again, and Lanette comes face-to-face with a photograph. She squints, but it doesn’t make sense to her. It _looks_ like an articuno, but something is … off about it. It’s fighting another bird that looks like a moltres, except not, and beneath them is a spiky, orange blur whose silhouette almost looks like … zapdos, Lanette wants to say?

“Variations of the Kantonian legendary birds,” Bill says. “Or at least, that’s the theory behind what’s going on. No one’s been able to get close enough to tell for certain.”

He picks up the tablet and looks at it himself, and Lanette decides at once she doesn’t quite like the look on his face. At first glance, he looks like he’s trying to figure out what these pokémon are, but Lanette has known him far too long and thus knows far better than that. There’s an eager glint in his eyes, a calmness in his stance, a determined tightness around his mouth.

It’s the exact kind of look he had when he told her a few years ago that he was going to go after reports of the actual Kantonian legends. And what became of that? Three separate visits to the hospital: one for electrocution, one for near hypothermia, and one for … well, an assorted collection of injuries coming from attempting to traverse Victory Road while just barely armed.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Lanette says, “it’s a terrible idea.”

That breaks that expression, and Bill looks up with the wide-eyed shock of a small child that’s just been punched. “What?” He sets the tablet down—trying to look casual but definitely deliberately on a picture of a forest full of adorable snom. “Why would you say that?”

Lanette squints. He’s not winning this round, and she emphasizes this by pointing to the picture. “That’s a tundra. I hate the cold, and you’re doubly weak to ice.”

“I’m not going to go as a _flygon_ ,” Bill replies, rolling his eyes.

“Oh really? Then name your team.”

Bill hesitates for a touch too long to not be suspicious, then replies, “Fox. Lucky. Prim—look, I’m not going to spend _all_ of my time as a flygon!”

Lanette sighs. “Bill.”

“Just the parts where it would be—Lanette, it’s _regional variations of legendaries_. Tell me you’re not interested.”

Lanette gives him a hard stare. Bill gives her that wide-eyed, eevee pup look. Lanette mentally steels herself, and tells herself that Bill is definitely not going to go because it’s _dangerous_ , and anyway, they have _work_ to do, and that look Bill’s giving her right now is most definitely not going to convince her otherw—

….

And that’s why that afternoon, she’s the one making the travel arrangements.


	2. Chapter 2

In a word, Freezington is less a village and more a resort that happens to have a village attached. The locals, bundled up in thick coats lined with fur, smile and nod to the tourists that walk by, but they rarely say a word to them. Those tourists pass, and the locals, still standing on the half-frozen carrot fields of the tiny village, immediately return to gossiping in low tones about the things they’ve gossiped about for the past thirty-odd years. In the meantime, snow falls softly on the village’s wooden cabins, and the ones the locals live in look worn and old yet reliable, like old grandfathers standing in a field of snow, puffing away at pipes. By contrast, the cabins for tourists look a little newer, a little glossier, with red paint and no smoke curling from their chimneys, yet they add a touch of color to the otherwise picturesque winter town. It’s quaint, like a Currier and Ives print on a Christmas greeting card. It’s the kind of place where you don’t so much go to launch yourself into an adventure but rather ski a little and curl up next to a fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate.

At the moment, Lanette wishes she’s doing the latter—curling up next to a fireplace with a mug of chocolate, in other words. As it is, though, she’s wading through snow drifts between the edge of town and a cabin she knows will be her home for the next several weeks, with her mittened hands around her backpack straps and a slew of colorful words held back only by her chattering teeth.

To be fair, she knows how to dress for the winter, and in fact, she has. Thermals. Turtleneck. Fleece vest. Thick snow pants. A snow jacket on top of all that. Hat. Mittens. Scarf. Heavy snowboots. By all accounts, she _should_ be perfectly warm, and to be honest, she _does_ feel the cool sheen of sweat underneath her thermal. But the point is she’s standing in snow and peering over the rims of her fogged glasses while feeling incredibly petty right about then.

Mostly because Bill, who’s apparently not dressed quite as heavily, is far happier about this whole ordeal than she feels he has any right to be for someone walking through a literal tundra.

“Take a look at this,” he says, holding his tablet computer out for her to see. Lanette only affords it a slight glance, just enough to know that it’s on a tourism website of some kind. “According to this, one of Freezington’s chief tourism spots, the Max Lair, has recently seen a flood of reports from trainers who have encountered dynamaxed legendaries. We absolutely _must_ go there! How can we say no to _these_ reports?”

“Uh huh,” Lanette says. She silently prays to Jirachi that the moment they reach the cabin, a sudden wave of jet lag will hit her partner.

“Then of course there are the ancient ruins around the island,” Bill continues, flicking through his tablet himself. “Four in all, it seems, and all four of them are locked with puzzles that are yet to be solved. Legend has it that each shrine is actually a giant containment unit for powerful pokémon, and judging by these carvings above their doors, I have a feeling you can guess exactly what’s inside. Surely, you’ll want to check them out, right?”

“Sure. Yeah,” Lanette says, her eyes drifting to the cabins. Which one is theirs again?

“And then there’s Dyna Tree Hill, where—ah! Lanette, take a look at this!”

She stops dead and sighs once more. Dreams of hot chocolate (with marshmallows and just a touch of cayenne, maybe) are creeping further and further away from Lanette’s reach, and she knows this. Still, she takes a deep breath and reminds herself this is Bill. When they were younger, when she met him, she liked to compare him to a diamond in a chunk of coal. There was something there, she knew, and it would take hard work and effort to slowly chip away at a hardened shell to find something beautiful. And that enthusiasm? That sense of absolute wonder? That was the diamond.

And that’s still true, in her opinion. It’s just that there are times when Lanette wishes she can just sort of shut that diamond away in a nice little jewelry box and have a nice cup of hot chocolate. It’s not his fault, really. It’s just the fact that she’s stuck in a tundra and just really wants that hot chocolate.

So, forcing those thoughts of cocoa away for a second, she tries her best to look interested and turns her head to see what caught Bill’s attention.

It’s a statue. Granted, it affords more reverence than that, and the part of Lanette that actually sort of likes art knows that, though she can’t put her finger on why. It isn’t exactly anything special at first glance. It’s not large; it’s barely Bill’s height and just stands there without a base. The details of its face look worn away, and the stone itself? Not exactly the kind of glittering marble that will (or ever did) inspire generations. But there’s something about it that catches her attention too, and she walks forward, examining the figure steadily.

And then Bill, in a voice that’s low and hushed and with all the reverence Lanette wishes she can muster, finally points out what is currently prodding at the back of her mind.

“What pokémon do you think these are?”

Lanette stops at his side and really takes them in. The top figure is a bipedal creature. Small, with a deer-like face and what looks like a cape wrapped around thin shoulders. Its head is jagged, and Lanette can’t tell if that’s intentional or if there’s more to that puzzle than she originally thought. And the bottom figure? A horse with no eyes. As in, its eyes aren’t worn away. It’s as if they aren’t there in the first place. Lanette shudders for more than just the cold. A sense of something amiss settles deep into her core and chills her inside out, and she wants nothing more than to walk away from that statue. She can’t explain it, but she knows that of all the legendaries that supposedly called Crown Tundra home, these two are the last pokémon Bill should be meeting.

“Lanette?”

Without meaning to, Lanette gasps and turns to her partner to find him gazing at her worriedly.

“Is everything all right? You look a little spooked,” he says.

Lanette wraps her arms around herself and backs away from the statue.

“O-of course,” she says. “I just—look, it’s really cold out here, and we’ve been traveling for a long time. Let’s just find our cabin, warm up, and get some rest, okay?”

Bill’s expression of concern intensifies a little, then flickers into a certain gravity. By some miracle, it appears to Lanette that she’s managed to talk sense into him for once.

“Right. You’re right. Let’s settle into the cabin first.”

Lanette relaxes at this point, then begins leading Bill away from the statue. She knows better than to assume that was that, though. She knows her partner well enough, and in any case…

…he isn’t at all subtle about glancing back at that statue with that look of unbreakable curiosity Lanette knows all too well.


	3. Chapter 3

_Click._

Bill stares at the picture he took of the statue, flicking back and forth on his tablet between it and every picture of deer-like and horse-like pokémon he had. It’s almost two hours after he and Lanette arrived in Freezington, and already the evening sky is painted a brilliant orange. Even the sunset is beautiful in that tiny village, with the way its pinks and reds reflect off the sheets of packed snow, and the way the shadows pool down the edges of the village’s cabins. But Bill doesn’t notice any of this, nor the biting cold. All he can see in front of him is the statue, his tablet, and the endless streams of data he’s gathering every second.

It doesn’t make sense. That statement can applied to a number of different things, but it most applies right now to the fact that he has no idea what these pokémon are. They don’t match anything in any of the databases he can find. Nothing in Galarian legend. Nothing in Kalosean. He even pulled data from Kanto and Johto to cross-reference. And … nothing. Could they have been regional variations of legendaries, the way regional variations of rattata and meowth have cropped up? Maybe, but even then, something about them should be familiar, right? So they have to be something new. Something … well, perhaps not quite undiscovered, if the villagers had put up a statue, but they’re something so old and ancient and obscure that they somehow defy being indexed. And the prospect of that lights a fire in Bill that’s so hot he nearly forgets he’s even in a tundra.

Then there’s the other thing that doesn’t make sense to him. Lanette doesn’t make sense to him. About an hour after they settled in, he asked her if she wanted to come outside and help him figure out what the pokémon of the statue were, and she just … declined. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said. “I’m getting a cup of hot chocolate going, then spending the rest of the evening in the warm indoors, if you don’t mind.”

And as much as he smiled and said he supported the entire idea of Lanette making herself comfortable, he didn’t get it. And he still doesn’t. There they are, in this wild stretch of land supposedly filled with rare and legendary pokémon. The first town they come to had evidence of pokémon neither of them recognize, just waiting to be discovered. And her reaction, as a pokémon researcher, is to … have hot chocolate.

Don’t get him wrong. Bill isn’t judging her. He just can’t wrap his mind around why someone would forgo the chance at discovering a new pokémon.

In any case, that doesn’t matter, except in the sense that he wishes he had someone to bounce ideas off of. It’s odd, really. They’ve only spent a year together, and all of a sudden, Bill misses having someone to bounce ideas off of. Whatever happened to the old days, where he just sort of blurted them out to himself?

“There has to be something here that I’m missing. Maybe there’s a plaque that identifies it?”

There. Wasn’t that better?

Bill slips his tablet back into his pack, reaches down with both gloved hands, and starts walking a perimeter around the statue. Of course—how could he be so dense? Why bend over backwards trying to identify a pokémon the hard way when the townspeople had probably done it for him? Surely there’s a plaque with an inscription or maybe a stone or—

He reaches into a snowbank behind the statue and strikes something hard far sooner than he’s expecting. His hands brush over it, wiping just enough snow away to reveal carved stone, sitting just in front of the fence behind it. Dropping to his knees, Bill fervently digs the object out, tossing snow to either side, until it emerges fully.

It’s not a plaque. It’s not a stone that bore a description of the piece, either. It’s … something. Bill can tell it’s not just some garden rock because it looks carved, like it’s meant to be part of the statue, but … it’s odd. A large, bulbous orb, set in four branches like a jewel or a head of cotton, with a rough patch at the top. What is this? Part of the statue? Another pokémon?

Bill places a hand on it, intending on just resting it there, but it shifts beneath his weight. The thing is lighter than it looks, but more importantly … it’s not bolted to the ground. He furrows his eyebrows in confusion, then grasps the object by two of its branches and pulls. It comes with him as he stands, and in the next quiet moments, Bill stares at it. It’s definitely part of the statue. It has to be. Why else would it be there, carved and discarded like it was? He looks from it to the statue and back again, and it doesn’t take long to figure it out.

He flips the thing over. Lifts it higher. And slides it into place on the statue’s head. Then he steps back, expecting either the crown to fall off or the statue to make sense.

Except neither happens. Nothing happens, actually, except … the longer he stands there, the more he feels … odd. It takes him a second, but he realizes that he feels like he’s being … watched. He steps back again, peering over the fence at the woods at the edge of the village. Then, slowly, he bends down to reach for his pack.

“My goodness! I didn’t know the statue had a crown!”

Bill jumps and cries out in shock. Then, he whirls around to face the voice, only to find a little old lady staring up at the statue fondly.

“Thank you, young man! It looks just like the drawings in the books I used to read as a little girl,” she says. “Why, he looks like a proper king now!”

“A … a king?” Bill says.

“Oh, you must be one of those out-of-towners, coming here for adventure,” the old lady replies with a wave of her hand. “Would you like to know the story of this statue?”

Of course Bill lights up at this. Why didn’t he think of that before? Just ask the locals! “Yes, actually! What pokémon are these?”

“Well! Long, long ago, the village fell into hard times,” the woman says. “Our land had grown barren, and not a thing would grow. But the one day, a pokémon and his loyal steed rode into town and blessed our fields, and ever since then, our crops would grow, even under the harshest weather. We called the rider the King of Bountiful Harvest and gave offerings to him for generations … or, well, that’s how the story goes. I don’t remember the last time we offered anything at all to the King of Bountiful Harvests. Anyway, this statue is here to remind us of him, even if we don’t observe many of the traditions surrounding him anymore.”

What feels like an ice cube settles into the pit of Bill’s stomach. Pokémon that lived among people? That they worshipped and gave offerings to? That they stopped giving offerings to and respecting as a minor deity? The last time Bill had heard of a story like that, it ended with a tower in Ecruteak burning down, and if that was the case…

“This King of Bountiful Harvests … what happened to him after you stopped giving him offerings?” he asks.

“Hmm? Oh, well, I don’t know,” the woman says. “It’s just a fairy tale, really, and you know how these things end.”

Bill does. Except the ones he knows about don’t end the way the woman thinks they do.

“Well, if you want to hear the rest, I’d reckon no one in Freezington knows more than the mayor.” The woman pats his arm. “I hope you enjoy Freezington. It’s a nice little town.”

And with that, she waddles away, leaving Bill standing there, in the cold, next to the statue of the King of Bountiful Harvests. He sighs, places his hands on his hips, and looks up at the King’s thin face.

“I really hope you won’t be a dead end,” he says. Then, he reaches for his pack again, pulling it up and slipping it onto his back. “I’d better check in with the mayor first thing tomorrow morning. At the very least, maybe I can find out what your real name is…”

He takes a few more steps and stops. That feeling of being watched hit him once more, and he looks up and into the forest.

Then, when nothing happens, he starts for the cabin again. Something tells him that maybe there’s something more to the story, and he’s going to find it, one way or another.


	4. Chapter 4

Just before dawn, a blast of cold air jolts Bill awake. He sits up and stares into the darkness for a second, then looks to the only square of light in the room: the wide-open door. His heart jumps, and he reaches onto the bed next to him, only to find a very empty, very cold space where Lanette is supposed to be.

He’s dressed in his snowsuit and out the same door barely five minutes later, with Foxglove by his side.

“Foxglove, scan the air for Lanette’s aura. Whatever happened, she can’t be far.”

He twists around, scanning the town for any sign of his partner while biting off Old Johtonian curses. No fresh footprints in the new snow. No bright flash of red hair in the graying dawn. How can that be? Is it—

At his side, he can feel the air shift, and in his head, he feels the pressure of Foxglove exerting his power. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the golden streak of Fox’s body whip through the air and head directly for the forest beyond the fence and statue. Bill bites back another Johtonian curse and gives chase into the trees.

It doesn’t take long after that. The two of them come to a clearing, and there, Bill’s heart settles, both literally … and figuratively.

Lanette rests beneath a tree on the opposite side of the clearing. Her eyes are closed, and her glasses are missing, so she must have been taken. But at least whoever took her had the foresight to give her a coat and boots. Could’ve used enough foresight to give her pants beyond the flannel ones she’s wearing. Still, she’s there and not broken and in a pool of blood, so … small blessings for the time being, Bill knows. He starts forward, intending on swooping down to check on her, make sure she’s okay, then gently carry her back to the cabin. But before he can do any of these things, a force throws him back across the clearing, and he lands hard on his seat.

To be fair, even Bill acknowledges he should have seen that one coming.

Picking himself back up with a groan, Bill gazes straight ahead to see Fox already engaged in a battle of psychic blasts with a strange pokémon. He blinks, taking in the creature’s silhouette. Small. Thin limbs. Slender face. Large crown.

“The legendary!” he gasps. “Fox! Shadow Ball!”

Foxglove flings his free hand back, and an orb of pure, inky darkness forms in his claws. He throws it forward, swinging it towards the head of the other pokémon, but it extends an arm beneath Fox’s and touches its chest with a glowing, green paw. Fox seizes and writhes at the creature’s touch as a green light engulfs them both, and the Shadow Ball dissipates from his claws harmlessly.

“Fox,” Bill breathes. “Hold on!”

He leaps forward, first on his feet, and then with his wings as he slides from one form to the other. His claws burst into violet flame, and he swings, severing the connection between the pokémon and Fox. Forcing himself between them, he strikes out with one Dragon Claw after another, driving the legendary back until they reach the edge of the clearing, and then, he rears back, fangs flashing with white light, before snapping down on the creature’s crown with a Crunch.

Barely a second later, the thing throws him across the clearing again with one more Psychic. He catches himself at the last second, rights his flygon body, and lands harmlessly on the snow with Fox flashing into existence by his side. The pokémon hangs in the air across the clearing from them, rainbow embers of psychic energy flicking off its slender body. Bill and Fox wait for it, wait for something to happen.

And something does.

“Impressive.”

Bill looks to Lanette, who’s standing at the edge of their makeshift battlefield, but he knows right away something isn’t right. After all, it’s hard not to notice, what with the blue aura surrounding her and the blue glow in her eyes. She pushes off the ground and floats forward, coming to a rest again next to the pokémon.

“I can understand you just fine without a medium,” Bill says. “Let her go. I don’t want to fight you.”

“I would rather not fight you either,” the creature says, through Lanette’s mouth. “My name is Calyrex, King of Bountiful Harvests. I saw what you did yesterday. Thank you for restoring my statue. No human has ever been so kind to or curious about me.”

Bill eases out of his fighting stance and glares at Calyrex in exasperation. “Are you ignoring me?”

“Not at all,” it replies. “I know you asked me to let your friend go. And I will. But first, I need to ask of you one more favor.”

“If you’re going to keep this up, maybe I should catch you and sort all this out later,” Bill mutters.

He closes his eyes and focuses on pulling the dragonfire back, on reforming his body back to what it should be … but neither move. His eyes snap open, and he looks down at his hands, willing them to change shape. Nothing.

“What?”

“Human,” Calyrex sighs. “Among my many powers is the ability to influence minds, as you can see with your friend. Though my power is greatly diminished, it is not so difficult a task to make you temporarily forget how to change form.”

A chill passes over Bill, both figurative … and literal this time. Slowly, he raises his head, then swallows hard.

“Ah … w-what?” he stammers.

“Please. I beg of you.” Lanette’s body shifts forward, clasping her hands together. “Please help me.”

Bill shivers again as he stares deep into Lanette’s face. Then, he looks past her to the legendary.

“If I help you, you’ll let Lanette go? And let me change back?” he asks.

“Of course.”

Bill straightens. “Well … all right. I don’t know what I can do for a legendary of all things, but…” He trails off right at the moment that it hit him that he’s helping a legendary pokémon.

Oh blazes. What is he even doing? Oh, sure, working directly for a legendary is more than an honor. No one gets chosen by a legendary but heroes, or those pure of heart, or exceptionally strong trainers, and here he is, actually about to accept a task from a legendary! But oh. Oh blazes no. What can it possibly be? Calyrex surely wouldn’t overestimate his power, right? Sure, he held his own in a battle against a legendary, but that was one legendary! He’d gotten lucky; he can’t possibly battle another.

Lanette’s face smiles, and through her voice, Calyrex says, “Long, long ago, the people of this tundra worshipped me as a god. They gave me offerings, and in return, I blessed their lands with my immense power. But as the years wore on, the offerings the people gave me grew leaner and leaner, until they’d stopped altogether—and with it, my power grew dimmer and dimmer too. Now, you see the last vestiges of my abilities: the control over one human … and the control over one set of memories. Thus, this is why I need you.”

Bill tenses. Here it is. He’s about to be tasked with some monumental, sisyphean thing, a task he can never hope to accomplish. Maybe he’d need to retrieve an offering fit for a god. Maybe he’d need to restore a god’s power itself. Maybe he’d—

“I need you to find out what the townspeople think of me.”

Bill blinks. “That’s … that’s it?”

Calyrex nods. “Yes. Is there something wrong?”

“No! I just…” Bill rises to his full height again, this time with relief. “You couldn’t have come to a better person. I’m a researcher; finding things out about pokémon is what I do. Trust me—you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted to know from their perspective by noon.”

Calyrex has Lanette’s expression light up, and she claps her hands with joy, and Bill’s heart doesn’t know whether to melt at the sight of Lanette’s happiness or to turn because he knows that isn’t Lanette.

“Wonderful!” Calyrex exclaims. “Then I will meet you here again when the sun reaches the top of the sky.”

And with that, Calyrex vanishes, along with Lanette, leaving Bill and Fox standing in the clearing. One second ticks by. Then two. Then finally, Bill feels a presence in the back of his mind, followed by a voice he knows is Fox’s.

_So how did you plan on questioning the townspeople when you’re stuck as a flygon?_

Another second goes by, and then Bill bites off one more Old Johtonian curse.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s late morning when the mayor of Freezington walks home for lunch. He does this every day. Wake up, breakfast, put on layers of clothes, walk down to the village square to make his morning hellos, then walk back at nearly noon to have lunch. It’s the same thing every single day, without fail, because frankly, Freezington is a nice place to live. Its people are quiet, there’s little crime (unlike the excitement in Greater Galar on the other side of the Wild Mountains), and everything is quiet. That day, it had been pretty quiet too, though the local gossips were already tittering about the fact that the door to one of the tourist cabins—one hosting some famous guest or another from a faraway region—was left wide open for pokémon to go in. But it couldn’t have been a burglary, the mayor thinks. He knows every single person that lives in that town, and not a single one of them would want to mess about with the tourists. Could the tourists have done it? Nah. Those two are the only ones booked that week. No, it must have been that they’d gotten a bit excited and rushed off to go after some pokémon. He closes the door on his way back (but not lock it, just to be polite) and makes a mental note to stop by and let those two folks know. They seem like good people, anyway.

So with his morning business done, the mayor ambles back home, where he opens the door (also not locked) and walks inside. He takes off his hat and dusts the snow off it and hangs it up on the hook next to the door.

And then something taps on the door.

He pauses for a second. It’s too light and too low to be one of the older folks down in the village. Might it be a wild pokémon, looking for help? That isn’t unusual. Sometimes, a wild smoochum or magby or elekid wanders away from its parents, completely turned around and in need of some guidance back to the snowy fields outside of town. The mayor smiles at this. Yes, we all need each other sometimes. And that includes the wild pokémon.

But when he opens the door, what he finds on the other side isn’t a smoochum or an elekid or a magby. It’s a kadabra—which, incidentally, he only recognizes from the time he lived on the other side of the mountain chain all those years ago.

Because, after all, there aren’t supposed to be any in the Crown Tundra.

The mayor leans out, over the kadabra, to peer at the walkway outside his house. No one there. No trainers. No owners. No humans whatsoever. He pulls himself back into his cottage and gives the kadabra a wary smile.

“Well, hello there!” he says. “What can I do for you?”

The kadabra lifts its free hand and spreads its claws, and suddenly, the mayor feels like something is reaching into his brain. He gasps and reels backwards, and his vision blurs for what feels like only a second, but when he opens his eyes again, the kadabra is inside his house and across his living room, scanning the bookshelf standing against the far wall.

“H-hey!” the mayor says. “What—”

The kadabra pulls a particular book out of the bookshelf, then looks back to the mayor, and the mayor himself freezes. He knows that book. That’s—

“Now wait just a min—”

The kadabra vanishes before he can finish, book and all.


	6. Chapter 6

“See? That wasn’t so bad!”

Foxglove watches his owner with a skeptical eye. Bill sits in the center of the clearing where he met Calyrex, and even though the sun is almost to its zenith, his entire body is tense and clearly resisting every temptation to shiver.

Truth be told, some of Bill’s new quirks are easy for him to ignore. Hunting instincts? Just slightly sharper senses, combined with the ability to track things down easier—occasionally useful, rather than a nuisance. The ability to understand pokémon? Started to fade into the background, after the novelty wore off. Even the transformations? Largely under control by then. But sometimes—just sometimes—a quirk surfaces and just outright bites him in the tail. Such as, for example, the weakness to ice. Before all this, he hadn’t minded the cold—and, in fact, he still doesn’t … so long as he stays in his human form. But now? Now that he’s stuck in the form of a desert-dwelling dragon?

Let’s just say Bill is using all of his willpower to focus on the task at hand. But it’s hard. It’s very hard.

Granted, part of that has to do with what he’s been doing for the past couple of hours. Fox advised him against going hunting for information himself (something about how “it won’t be so easy for humans to swallow a talking dragon”), so Bill spent the better part of two hours waiting for Fox to do the legwork—an act that apparently consisted of one half telepathic reconnaissance, one half burglary. It’s not a comfortable route for several reasons besides being a dragon stuck in the tundra, and the fact that he wasn’t doing the digging—he couldn’t hear what they’d found, nor follow up with questions or direct them to the right questions himself—left a sense of impatience in him.

And that, really, is what he meant by “wasn’t so bad.” Because the end result is a book about Calyrex and a collection of memories from the townspeople, beamed into his head by Foxglove. All he has to do is put the whole lot of it together.

“Excellent work, by the way,” he says. “Now let’s see what all of this says.”

He flips open the book and scans its words, claws flicking from line to line and flipping from page to page.

“According to what you found, the story of Calyrex is not much more than a fairytale to these people—which, as we’ve discovered, is far from true,” Bill begins. “The question is … if Calyrex is right about its power diminishing, is it the lack of belief that’s doing it? Somehow, I doubt that. A pokémon whose abilities depend that much on how many humans believe in it? Pokémon don’t just get weaker if they’re separated from the humans they relied on. Maybe if they’ve stopped using their abilities, but if everything I’ve heard about Crown Tundra is true, then if anything, a pokémon would rely on their abilities more if they didn’t have a team or a trainer to help them out here. There has to be something else going on. There’s something missing to the story. Maybe a-a trainer, or an artifact that increased its power, or—wait.”

Bill’s claw hovers over a line of text in the book. He squints, leaning down over the text.

“‘It rode on a powerful horse-like pokémon, one that once ran wild across the land. But the King had tamed it with its magic reins that melded its power with that of this horse, and with its help, the King raised forests from nothing,’” Bill reads. He blinks, then sits back. “Melded its power—we’ve seen that before. N-no, I don’t mean—the reports from Alola. And the ones from Unova—what were those? Necrozma? Kyurem? What if Calyrex is only one half of a whole, and that other half is this … this steed—” 

“Ah! My steed!”

Bill jumps at the sound of Lanette’s voice. He looks up to see her standing there, peering over his shoulder at the book. Calyrex hangs in the air above her, studying them both with a steady, ancient gaze.

“I remember now,” Calyrex says. “I remember riding across the lands atop my faithful steed, and I remember the power we wielded when we were one.”

Lanette straightens up and looks at her hands. Bill’s eyes fall on her fingers, and he notices how pale they looked. Surely, Calyrex knows this and is keeping her warm … right?

“You must be right, human! That must be why I feel so weak!” Calyrex continues. “If I could just find my steed … perhaps my power will return.”

Bill closes the book, his eyes steady on Lanette’s hands. “Yes, I’m sure that’s true, but how exactly do we find your, ah, steed?”

Calyrex hesitates. Bill notices this, and at once, that vaguely familiar feeling of ill omen settles in his chest.

“We parted ways centuries ago,” Calyrex says. “I cannot remember why. It may have been my waning power, even then. I have been too ashamed to face it since.”

And that feeling of apprehension instantly turns to one of slight annoyance. Calyrex is stalling, and Bill can tell that instantly. And by extent, Calyrex must be stalling for a reason, and given that this legendary is clearly bent on sending Bill off on quests, he has a bad feeling about why it’s stalling.

Oh, don’t get him wrong. If Bill has to hunt down another legendary, he won’t exactly mind. There’s excitement in it, not to mention the prospect of meeting a second legendary in a day! But … something tells him this next encounter will be nothing but trouble. It’s an annoying, nagging feeling deep in his heart. Maybe it’s the flygon in him telling him to run while he still can.

Sadly for that part of him, Calyrex cuts off his escape route.

“But if that is what we must do…” Calyrex looks at Bill—both the actual Calyrex and Lanette puppeted by it. “I remember it loved carrots. Not just any, but a special type that only I can grow. If I can find carrot seeds, then I may be able to make the carrots that will draw my steed to us.”

Bill shifts uncomfortably onto his haunches. “And … and then what?”

“Hmm? Oh. Well, we would convince my steed to return to my side, of course.”

Bill falls silent for a moment. He doesn’t like what the word “convince” implies, but on the other…

He looks at Lanette’s face, then at her hands. He wants to hold them and warm them between his own. Judging by the look of them, she probably isn’t warm, and knowing her…

“All right,” he says. “I’ll find carrot seeds for you.”

Lanette’s face smiles.

“Thank you,” Calyrex says. “I’ll be waiting.”

And just like that, Calyrex and Lanette are gone again.

“Where am I supposed to find carrot seeds?” Bill says, rubbing his claws on his crest in exasperation.

Foxglove reaches up and places a claw on Bill’s forehead, and instantly, Bill sees flashes of carrot fields. Or, more specifically, he sees the people working in them, tilling them, planting carrot seeds into them.

“Oh no,” he murmurs. “You’re not suggesting…?”

Foxglove withdraws his hand and nods. And Bill winces, realizing that today is just going to be a very interesting day for the people of Freezington.


	7. Chapter 7

The early afternoon calm that has settled over Freezington (following the random appearances of a kadabra and an apparent kadabra-related theft at the mayor’s house) is broken abruptly by yet another kadabra-related crime. Namely, the kadabra has reappeared with a flygon in tow, and together, the two of them knock over one of the farmers, steal a bag of seeds, and are now flying full speed away from the fields.

This is not one of Bill’s most illustrious moments, in other words.

Luckily, the people of Freezington barely give chase. Most of them are old and none of them seem to have pokémon capable of keeping up with a fully-evolved dragon and a pokémon with Teleport, and none of this does a thing to alleviate either the churning weight of guilt hitting Bill’s stomach _or_ the icy panic stabbing through his heart. And for that reason, it isn’t until he and Foxglove get back to the clearing when he finally collapses into the snow, panting, forehead to the snow, and just about ready to have a nervous breakdown.

And that’s where Calyrex finds him.

“Ah! Here I was, growing worried that something had happened to you, human,” Calyrex says.

Bill lifts his head and points a claw at the legendary. “Don’t … don’t start with me.”

The creature stares unwaveringly at him, but it’s Lanette who’s by his side, resting a hand on his back.

“My apologies. I realize from your state that you must have faced quite a trial on my behalf,” the legendary says through her mouth. “But I have full faith that you came away victorious. While you were gone, I took the liberty of learning more about you from my speaker. She knows you to be tenacious and clever—perhaps more so than any other human. She believes you to be the sort of person who would go to great lengths for another in need, and … I see from that bag at your side that she is correct. I am most impressed, human. I have chosen well to trust you as my champion; few others would rise to the call as readily as you did.”

An electric current runs down Bill’s spine. Oh, he isn’t embarrassed by hearing what Lanette actually thinks of him. That part is the only good part about any of this, because to be frank, as much as Bill thinks Lanette and all her flaws are cute (just as she thinks he and all of his are), she rarely shows that level of tenderness and vulnerability. So to hear that from her is to peel back a curtain even he can’t often lift, and he _wishes_ he can dwell on that, but _of course he can’t, given the reason all of this deeply, **deeply** disturbs him._

Calyrex is invading her mind now. It’s in her head and reading her memories, and that? That irritates Bill. It terrifies him. He can’t help but imagine Lanette, barely aware and barely capable of fighting back against a legendary psychic. And of course, there’s the implication that _he’s_ completely willing to do what Calyrex demands, but … that’s a side point, compared to _this_.

“That’s something we need to talk about,” Bill says. “You don’t need Lanette. I can understand you. My kadabra can read your mind. The both of us can fare far better in the cold than a human can, and we can understand everything you say. So please. Let her go.”

The smile on Lanette’s face vanishes, replaced by a blankness Bill has never seen on her. A hazy, blue glow surrounds her body, and she rises, literally lifting off the ground to hover like a rag doll half a foot from the snow. Calyrex’s voice doesn’t come from her mouth this time; it’s beamed directly into his and Foxglove’s heads.

_You misunderstand her purpose,_ Calyrex says. _She is not here simply to be my speaker. She is here to ensure you stay on task. I have lived in this tundra for centuries, human. My powers have been dying long before your father’s father had seen his first days. Did you really think you were the first person I asked for help?_

It sets Lanette on her feet, and she looks dead into Bill’s eyes. Bill reels from the ending of that message, grimacing and clutching his head with a set of claws. Foxglove rests a hand on his trainer’s side but keeps his eyes on the legendary warily.

“So forgive me if I act out of desperation,” Calyrex says. “But fear not. Your quest is almost over.”

The bag of carrot seeds rises from the spot on the ground where Bill dropped them and floats into Lanette’s outstretched hands. Calyrex glides through the air to examine them, squinting at the bag before closing its eyes entirely.

“These will do. You will need to plant them before I can use my powers on them.”

Bill forces himself to look at Calyrex. “Are you serious?”

“Completely.”

With a heavy sigh, Bill sags his shoulders. “It’s not going to be as easy as finding a plot of land in town, digging a hole, and burying these, is it?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” Bill straightens up. “All right. What do you need me to do now?”

The next thing Calyrex shoots into Bill’s head takes him at least by surprise. He chokes back a yelp and doubles over, his vision instantly swimming until it’s replaced entirely with a sight he doesn’t recognize: a snowy field amidst dead trees, a frozen-over patch of earth on a mountain.

_The carrots must have a patch of fertile ground to take seed, and the fields here are tired,_ Calyrex explains. _However, I see two fields that may be suitable for our needs. The first is this, a snowy field on the side of a mountain._

Bill’s vision swims again, and this time, he sees another field, another patch of earth that looks like it once grew something. This time, it stretches across a cliffside, overlooking the jagged stones of an old graveyard.

_The second is this, a lonely field guarded by the spirits of my subjects’ ancestors. Choose only one of these fields, and I will meet you there._

Once more, Bill’s vision distorts, but this time, he finds himself staring at the snow. Blinking, he lifts his head to find himself in the clearing. Foxglove stands, muzzle pointed to the sky and thoughts clearly elsewhere.

And Calyrex and Lanette are gone.


	8. Chapter 8

Giant’s Bed. A wild yet idyllic mountainside, nearly untouched by human hands, even with the recent flood of tourists. Snow falls softly onto its rolling, green hills, and the soft calls of pokémon break an otherwise still afternoon.

Well, that and the sound of a raging battle.

Upon careful consideration (namely, that he would rather not trek up a frigid mountain), Bill thought it would be a good idea to try his luck on the lower, greener pasture Calyrex had shown him. What he did not anticipate was that the route there would be full of wild pokémon, or that wild pokémon can smell a trainer on tamed ones and therefore will attack them on sight. Needless to say, this is not exactly Bill’s day, if the fact that he’s currently fighting a dragapult and an aerodactyl at the same time are anything to go by. Even more currently, a volley of stones from the aerodactyl hammer Bill directly into the idyllic hillside. Unburying himself, Bill glares up at the aerodactyl.

“Oh, that does it!” He shoots into the air with both sets of claws trailing violet fire behind him. “I don’t care if you are a rare fossil pokémon!” He swipes, slashing the aerodactyl across the face. “If you’re not going to leave me alone”—he swipes again, cutting across the aerodactyl’s face once more—“then forgive me for being rough!” One more time, and the aerodactyl goes down. 

Bill flinches in mid-air, clutching his shoulder while panting.

“Blazes,” he breathes. “That’s the sixth battle since we left Freezington.” He pauses, then glances down. “Where’s the other—”

A shadow explodes from the ground beneath him and surges upward, and the dragapult slams full force into Bill from below and behind, then continues rising while driving the helpless flygon higher and higher. It takes a moment for Bill to recover, and when he does, he twists and pushes off the dragapult, placing the other dragon at arm’s reach. It hisses, and its guns shift, and Bill stares directly at a pair of dreepy ready to be shot into his face. With a growl, Bill ducks under the dragapult’s reach and…

…sinks his teeth into one of its arms. The dragapult yelps, and the moment Bill lets go, it flees, barking like a wounded puppy as quickly as it can fly.

Bill watches it go, then slowly drifts back down to earth with a heavy, tired sigh. Foxglove is by his side in an instant, and the strange, tickling sensation crawling across his body tells him the kadabra is checking him for injuries.

“How many more aggressive pokémon are in the area?” Bill mumbles.

Foxglove hesitates. _Do you really want to know? And if so, do you want an answer that includes the aerodactyl you’re currently battling?_

“Fox, as much as I appreciate everything you do for me, you know that was a rhe—” Bill stops and thinks about what his partner has just told him. “Wait, what do you mean ‘currently bat—’“

The same aerodactyl Bill has been battling for the past ten minutes bursts into the airspace directly above him with a ball of brilliant, white light forming in its yawning maw. Bill cries out and raised his claws in a feeble defense against a full-on Hyper Beam, when all of a sudden, the aerodactyl freezes. A blue light surrounds it, and it abruptly rockets into the air. Standing over his trainer, Foxglove lifts his claw a little higher … then curls it downwards. The aerodactyl drops like a meteor into the ground a second later, leaving behind a small crater.

And then, Bill, still in full there-is-no-fight-only-flight mode, clutches his chest with a set of claws and falls backwards into the earth.

_Are you all right, sir?_ Foxglove asks.

“I’m fine,” Bill says. His tone implies that he is not fine. “Just need a moment for my heart to stop trying to jump out of my mouth.”

_Good. Then we should keep moving._

Bill closes his eyes and groans. “We will. Just … give me a second, okay?”

_Of course,_ Foxglove says. Then, after a moment, he adds, _If I may, sir … I’m worried._

With a deep breath, Bill opens his eyes to see Foxglove standing over him. He can’t read the kadabra’s expression.

“I know,” Bill sighs. He places a set of claws on his muzzle. “We’ll get Lanette back. We just need to get to the field before nightfall.”

_That’s not what I’m worried about._

“Then what?”

_You’re in no shape to fight a legendary. What if it comes to that?_

Bill uncovers his muzzle and stares at Foxglove. That thought has already crossed his mind more than once, but… “Is that a prediction?”

_Not the sort my kind makes. The sort yours does._

“Oh. Logical guessing.” Bill forces himself to sit up. “I don’t know, Fox. I’ll … I’ll think of something.”

_You won’t win at this rate. You’re barely strong enough to go up against the local pokémon. You can’t possibly go up against our gods like this._

Bill smirks wearily and props his muzzle on a set of claws. “More logical guessing?”

_No._

That single word—its firmness, how quickly Foxglove offered it—gives Bill pause. There was weight to it, the idea that not only will he fail if he tries to fight but also … possibly die. Bill swallows.

“So … what do you suggest I do?” he asks.

Foxglove exhales. _You’ll need help._ He lifts his muzzle and casts a glance towards a set of bushes not far from where the two of them are resting. _Luckily, help is coming._

Bill sits up and gives his kadabra a wary look. “What sort of help?”

_You know how I said we should keep moving?_

“Yes…?”

The bushes rustle a bit, and out of it steps an audino. Its crystal blue eyes fall on Bill, to whom it gives the warm, caring smile Bill has seen a thousand times on audino just like it.

_That’s why I said we should keep moving,_ Foxglove says. “That?” Bill chuckles. “Fox, it’s just an audino.”

And then, that audino’s expression turns into a sharp frown, and it launches itself full-force at Bill.


	9. Chapter 9

Audino are both easier and harder to fight, as it turns out. On the one hand, they’re easier because unlike aerodactyl, they can’t Hyper Beam one’s face off. On the other, they’re resilient creatures with apparent death wishes. The latest one, for example, took three Dragon Claws and an Earthquake to finally down, and by the time it stumbles away from Bill, dazed and defeated, Bill himself is left panting and kneeling on the ground. Not even a second later, the first audino he had met totters up to him and chatters about another one not far away.

It struck Bill from the outset as slightly weird that this audino had instantly decided to join him after being defeated in only two moves, but he didn’t argue then and still doesn’t now. He actually takes pleasure in the fact that he had a local pokémon to talk to—or, to put it in other words, someone other than Foxglove or Calyrex. Oh, sure, there’s nothing wrong with Fox (Calyrex, he doesn’t even want to talk about); don’t get Bill wrong about that. But it’s been almost a full year since he’s had an opportunity to hold a conversation with a wild pokémon (Calyrex aside), and unlike all of the ones Lanette eventually ended up catching, this one doesn’t actively hate him for some reason. So of course, it was all about gaining a new perspective: an opportunity to learn so much more about the lives of wild pokémon, especially in an environment as unique as the Crown Tundra.

For example, what Bill _really_ wants to know right now is why an audino is encouraging him to beat up other audino so much. Which had been a question that Bill had tried to ask for the past hour, only to have the audino drag him off to go join another battle.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Bill asks him now.

The audino answers in a series of trills that translate to something like “of course; we audino live to help others train like this” and “by the way, your form is absolutely terrible; lean into your attacks.” At the end, Bill glances at Foxglove, who catches his eye and … nods slowly in agreement. Bill sighs at this and forces himself to his feet. He wobbles a little, then shakes his head.

“Look … I appreciate the fact that you both are trying to help, but I think I need to take a break,” he said. “We’ve been wasting too much time anyway. Lanette is waiting for us.”

With that, he pushes off the ground and glides through the air. On the positive side, they had already found the field. It isn’t too far from where Bill had been training. He just … hasn’t settled on it yet. What Foxglove told him echoes in his head over and over again. If he isn’t prepared, he isn't going to survive. He’s actively helping a legendary to restore its power, and he has no idea what will happen once he succeeds. He knows next to nothing about Calyrex or its stories. Is it really a benevolent ruler? Or is it just as dangerous as, say, Giratina? Darkrai? The thousand other legendaries whose stories are tied heavily to warnings?

On the other hand, he thinks back to Lanette. He can’t stop thinking of Lanette, and of how much of this is his fault. He wanted to share this with her, after all. He’d been legendary hunting many times before—even came close to catching the Kantonian birds. But while he’d happily throw himself into ice, lightning, and fire over and over again without a second thought except for the beauty each possessed, he wouldn’t dream of doing the same to someone else. All he wanted was to share the thrill of the hunt with Lanette. It never occurred to him that he might have been sharing the danger too.

Maybe it should have.

He reaches the field first, with the audino and Foxglove not far behind him. It looks so … unassuming. Just a bare patch of earth surrounded by crumbling walls. Bill kneels down to place a paw on the barren patch. He can’t tell if it’s his half-ground nature or if it’s coming to him from his own gardening experience, but he knows that this … is not a great patch of earth. Is Calyrex mistaken? How can anything grow here?

“Easily.”

Bill starts and swivels around to see Lanette perched on a stone monument next to the patch of earth. Calyrex stands atop it on its thin legs, its eyes just as still and ancient as ever. “I see you’ve gained a friend on your quest,” Calyrex says. “This surprises and pleases me, human. This is not a quest you should undertake alone.”

Bill tenses, then slowly stands up. “How will this work?”

Lanette slips off the monument and shifts to the patch of earth, hands behind her back. She peers down to examine the ground, her booted feet scraping at the dry dirt.

“Is this your choice?” Calyrex asks.

Bill huffs impatiently. “You gave me two choices, and I chose from there. If you’re implying—”

“Not at all,” Calyrex replies. “This will do.”

Lanette kneels down and pulls the carrot seeds from her pocket. Her bare hands dig into the ground until Bill quickly claws between them.

“Please,” he says. “She really can’t stand the cold.”

He digs into the earth with his own claws as Lanette sits back, as if watching him curiously. He tries not to think of what this might mean, tries not to think about reaching for her with a legendary right over her shoulder. He simply digs a hole deep enough to bury seeds, then gives her a silent look.

_Please hold on,_ he thinks. _I’m doing everything I can to get you out of this._

But Bill knows she can’t possibly understand, even if Calyrex let go of her mind. She leans back down and pulls the bag of seeds from her pocket. Turning it over the hole, she pours the seeds all at once into the earth. Her hands shift, reaching to pull dirt over the seeds, but Bill’s claws join them. Together, they bury the carrot seeds, and Bill can’t help but notice how ice-cold Lanette’s fingers are.

“Right.” Calyrex floats down to hover between them. It reaches down, touching the earth with one paw. “Now stand back.”

Lanette rises to her feet and takes a step back, and both she and Calyrex become engulfed in blue light. Bill’s eyes flit from her to Calyrex to the earth and back, a frigid spike of panic rising in his chest.

“Wait,” he says, scrambling to his own feet. “Hold on. I—”

And then, there’s a flash of green light, and Bill stumbles backwards. He feels his two companions grab him and keep him on his feet as the ground rumbles beneath them. And then, just like that, it’s over, and the green light fades. Before Bill and his party, Calyrex shakes, Lanette sits limply on the monument again … and the head of a single black carrot sticks out of the ground. Bill ignores two of those things and instantly shoots to Lanette, reaching out for her to keep her steady.

“Lanette? Lanette!” he cries. “Please—are you okay?!”

She straightens under his touch, staring first at the sky. Then, she smiles at him, resting her hands on her lap.

“Of course,” she says.

Lanette slides off the monument and walks to the carrot. Calyrex is on its own feet now, hovering straight and stately a few inches off the ground.

“Now then,” it says. “Please pull the carrot out, if you would.”

Bill moves away from the monument and kneels down next to the carrot. “Let me ask you this first. If I pull this carrot out of the ground, will we be done here?”

Calyrex falls silent. Bill waits a few seconds for an answer, but when he doesn’t get one, he frowns sharply, grasps the carrot in both hands, and pulls.

It doesn’t resist as much as he thought it would. One moment, it’s in the ground, and the next, both he and it are in the air. He flaps his wings to restore his balance, then pulls the carrot to his face to examine it. What he finds … doesn’t look like any carrot he has ever seen. It has the head of a carrot, sure, but it’s black and twisted, trailing into a jagged shape towards the tapered end.

“Ah, a shaderoot carrot,” Calyrex says. “I remember now. My loyal steed adored these.” Calyrex floated forward, reaching a paw out to it. “If only my power were greater. I could have—”

A ghostly screech pierces the air. Both Calyrex and Bill flinch away from each other and snap their heads to the source of the noise. A black and violet shape bursts into view and slams its hooves against the hardened ground just outside of the ancient garden. It bucks its head, tossing a violet mane away from an eyeless face, then draws its nose to the sky.

“My steed,” Calyrex gasps.

With a quick glance to the legendary, Bill flapps his wings to take himself higher. “What is that?!”

A sharp cry rises from his side. Without warning, the audino rushes forward as his body begins to glow white.

“Audino!” Bill cries out. “Wait! Don’t!”

But his warning falls on deaf ears. The audino leaps from the ground and throws himself at the horse, just as it rears back. A piercing whinny echoes through the valley, and the creature kicks, and a powerful gust of wind rushes from its body and flings the audino back. Bill drops the carrot and reaches out to catch the audino, but in the few seconds he takes his eyes off the horse, it bolts. By the time he looks back, it’s already halfway up the mountain.

“What just…”

Lanette clears her throat. Bill finds her standing next to him, presenting him with the carrot. She glances down at it again, then pulls her headband off. Bill lowers himself to watch, while Lanette twists the headband around the carrot to create a small sling for it. As soon as she’s done, she gently hangs the carrot around Bill’s neck.

“I am truly sorry to continue asking more favors of you,” Calyrex says through her mouth. “My steed must be confused. It can smell its favorite treat, but it can smell much more up north.”

Bill furrows his eyebrows. “Much more up—” He shoots a deadly glare at Calyrex. “Your steed is heading towards Freezington?!”

Calyrex bows its head. “It must smell the humans’ carrot fields.”

Bill presses his claws into his face. A legendary. Heading directly towards a town that, as far as he can tell, doesn’t have a strong pokémon between any of its elderly residents.

Well. All he has to do is hope Foxglove was wrong about a lot of things that day.

He flaps his wings to take himself back into the sky.

“Come on!” he shouts. “We’d better stop that thing before somebody gets hurt!”


	10. Chapter 10

The people of Freezington had no warning. Right up until sunset, the day was still, the sunlight was bright, and the crops were waiting. Not even the usual flow of tourists into and out of town, geared up and ready to hunt for the scores of rare pokémon—pokémon the people of Freezington hardly see as rare at all—disrupted the flow of the townsfolk’s day. No, not even the flygon and the kadabra, spotted without trainers and making mischief in town (according to one rattled farmer and the mayor himself), fazed the villagers. This, after all, is Freezington. Nothing happens here. And so, that morning and through the afternoon, they went to their carrot fields and tended to their carrots, just as they had day after day after day.

And now, it’s sunset, and the people of Freezington are just about to return to their warm homes for the night. And it’s now that the Horse suddenly appears.

It comes out of nowhere, a giant horse made of pure shadows, barreling right towards the carrot fields. Its piercing whinny draws the attention of the townsfolk, but it’s already too late. The creature is too fast, and its stride is unwavering. Beneath its hooves, snow flies in cascades, then rough dirt, then tilled dirt. Onward, with all the force of a passenger train, it storms, its muzzle pointed right at a group of particular townsfolk, elderly fieldworkers busying themselves with packing the last fresh-picked carrots away in crates at the edge of the fields. They stand frozen as the horse draws near, as it stops dead before them, and as it rears back. Its obsidian hooves swing through the air, and a plume of smoke rushes out of its screaming throat. The shadows around it twist, forming tendrils that wind around its shoulders and neck and poise like snakes above it, yet the fieldworkers still do not move. Their eyes are drawn to the tendrils, watching them pool into a sphere above the horse, then shoot at one of their own…

…only to be deflected at the last second by a set of dragon claws.

The flygon that has just descended on the attack spins on its back paws and slams its shoulder into the horse’s chest, and the horse topples over and onto its side. It struggles to its feet, but its opponent is right there in the next second, slashing across its face and shoulders with one Dragon Claw, then another, then another. At the third, it slams its hands into its shoulders and pushes, driving it backwards. The horse squeals, and a blast of wind bursts from its body and throws the flygon into the snow.

As the flygon struggles to recover, a kadabra appears out of thin air above the horse and drops an audino onto its back. The audino barks and grabs at the horse’s mane, and between that yank and the fact that it had landed unceremoniously onto the horse’s back at all, the latter rears back once more, kicking while screaming in panic. Taking this as an opportunity, the kadabra throws a Shadow Ball of its own into the horse’s chest, knocking it back. Before it can recover, the flygon bursts up from the snow, grabs its shoulder with both claws, and sinks its glowing fangs into its front flank. The horse screams once more, then tears itself free from all three pokémon, bucks its head, and tears off, back the way it came.

And then, the evening grows quiet once more. The three pokémon pick themselves out of the snow, and the audino and kadabra turn to the flygon as if waiting to see what it will do. The townsfolk gather around them, watching, waiting for something to happen. And the mayor descends from his hill and crosses the fields.

“Was that … it couldn’t be,” he said.

The flygon perks up, then turns its head to look at the mayor. He continues forward, onto the field, where a lock of violet hair lies just a few feet from the dragon. With some effort, he bends down to pick it up.

“Well, I’ll be,” he continues. “I didn’t think I’d see hair like this since—well.” He looks at the dragon. “Thank you for saving us from that pokémon. Despite the surrounding wildlife, I don’t think any of us have a pokémon between us that could take on the King of Bountiful Harvests’ steed itself.”

At the mention of the King of Bountiful Harvests, the flygon takes a step forward. Does it understand? The mayor can’t quite tell. He smoothes the hair in his hands and decides to continue, just in case.

“Now, how can we possibly thank a pokémon? Food, perhaps? Would you three like to come in from the cold?” he asks.

The flygon shakes its head, then points at the hair. It _definitely_ understands. Curious.

“What, do you want the hair?” he asks.

It shakes its head again. It points once more to the hair in the mayor’s hand, then out towards … the direction the horse went.

“Ah. I see,” the mayor says. “You want to finish the battle.”

The flygon nods firmly, then turns and readies itself to take off.

“Before you do, there is something we could give you,” the mayor tells it.

The flygon twists around again, then lifts off a couple of inches.

“You see, the story goes that if this hair were to be braided in a particular way with something from the King of Bountiful Harvests, it will make a set of reins that will tame the king’s steed,” the mayor says. Then, he scratched his chin. “Now, I don’t rightly remember what that thing from the king is, but—”

Halfway through the mayor’s explanation, the flygon starts. Its eyes dart from the hair, then to the snow, back and forth as if thinking of something quickly. Then, it snatches the hair from the mayor’s hand, shoots up, and darts towards a stand of trees to the southwest of town.

“Hey! Wait!” the mayor calls.

But it, and the kadabra with the audino in its claws, vanish into the trees before the mayor can finish.


	11. Chapter 11

Bill barely has enough time to hand the horsehair to Calyrex before collapsing onto the snow in the middle of the clearing.

“Are you all right, human?” it asks. And Lanette kneels down, the hair in one hand and her other reaching out to settle onto a spot at the base of Bill’s neck. She’s freezing cold, but Bill appreciates that touch.

Still. The point is, she’s freezing cold.

Bill lifts his head off the ground, “You had me go off and fight a _legendary_ in _this form_.”

“And you fought admirably.” Lanette sits down next to him and begins stroking his back, fingers playing down one of his wings. He really doesn’t want to enjoy this. “I saw from the trees. You nearly defeated it.”

“If I didn’t have Fox or this audino with me, I probably would have died,” Bill retorts into the snow. “Did you happen to see the part where it threw me into the ground?”

“Yes. And the part where you rose to your feet again. So quickly too—you must realize that you may be stronger than you think.”

Bill frowns. There’s a reason for that, actually, and he’s well aware of what that reason is. And yes, that reason is currently resting a very cold hand on his back, and he bites his tongue to avoid explaining for the umpteenth time that he’s willing to throw himself to the metaphorical wolves (and maybe literal ones too) if it means she’ll be safe. He doesn’t want to keep admitting that, not because it’s not his brand or because he’d rather not have the conversation about, surprise of all surprises, actually caring about something other than pokémon for once but instead because it shouldn’t need to be said. When they were kids, Lanette was the first human being who was willing to show patience for him—not his intelligence but _him_ —so of course he was going to form attachments to her. It doesn’t even matter what those attachments are at the end of the day (he’s just annoyed enough to think this); what matters is that literally one of the most important human beings in the universe according to him is being puppeted around by an entity who seems to be taking pleasure in watching Bill engage in fetch quests and battle legends on its behalf. It’s enough to push this legendary, this long-forgotten mysterious creature, from something Bill would express wonder at right into something that’s quite frankly testing Bill’s own patience.

Well, there are limits to that patience, as Calyrex will likely find out soon if it doesn’t stop. And those limits have to do with putting Lanette in danger.

He picks himself up at that thought and dusts the snow off his front.

“Anyway, I suppose the next step would be to go after your horse,” he says.

“Indeed.” Lanette stands and looks out, towards the town. “I sense that my steed has escaped to the north—”

“Again?!”

She shakes her head. “No, human. Not that way. There is a shrine hidden in the mountains where we spent much of our time. Its presence is faint, but … I can sense that it has returned to the shrine to search … perhaps for me? How odd.”

“Not odd at all,” Bill says, deadpan. “Of course it would search for you. It’s just gotten beaten by three ordinary pokémon on its hunt for more carrots, and given the fact that you’ve somehow not seen it for some time despite the size of this region, I have a feeling it’s only awakened recently on top of everything else. So it’s confused, it’s beaten, and it’s searching for something familiar.”

Bill can feel Calyrex—the actual Calyrex—studying him. He can feel those eyes settle on him and even graze his skin. He isn’t in the mood for this. In fact, he’s about two seconds away from blocking Calyrex out when, finally, the legendary moves on.

“You may be right, human,” it says. “It may be time to prove myself to my steed and win its trust back.”

“Wait.” Bill reaches for Lanette’s hands and cups the one holding the horsehair in both of his claws. He pulls this hand gently towards Calyrex. “Someone in Freezington said that there was an item they used to give to you to help tame your horse. It was something made from the horse’s hair and … I’m not sure. An item from you. Do the Reins of Unity ring any bells?”

The creature’s eyes instantly light up, and it bobs in the air backwards.

“The Reins of Unity…! Yes! But I have not heard that name in ages,” it says. “This was the gift the humans gave to me every year as thanks. It would bind my power to my steed’s and unite us as one.”

Bill feels his veins go cold. He really, _really_ doesn’t want to think he’s right about this one—largely because he knows he’d have to fight the end result if he’s right—but memories of the stories of Kyurem and Necrozma and their ability to fuse with other pokémon instantly flood his mind.

“R-right,” Bill says. He clears his throat and tries again. “If you’re going to face your, ah, steed, you’ll likely want those reins. I’d hate to ask because that would mean having to figure out how to make them, but what was the item on your end? The one that would go into creating the Reins of Unity in the first place?”

He keeps his eyes on the pokémon as it floats backwards in thought. It taps its chin with a paw, then holds both of its spindly arms out in front of it. A small orb of green light appears between them.

“A flower,” it says. “A special flower only I can grow.”

And then, with pop and a flash of light, a single petal appears between Calyrex’s paws and floats to the ground. Calyrex itself sinks, nearly to the snow, then trembles and lifts the petal with its telekinesis. Bill quickly snatches the petal out of the air before Calyrex strains itself.

“This is all I can manage,” it explains. “I am truly sorry. My power—”

“It’s … it’s fine,” Bill replies. 

He takes the horsehair from Lanette’s hand and examines both of the items. Fox pads over, glances from his trainer’s face to the items, then grasps Bill’s claws to force them to lower. The audino joins them and toys with the other end.

_Do you think you can make the reins yourself?_ Fox asks.

“I’ll have to try,” Bill replies. “We don’t have time to take this back to Freezington and try to explain things.”

His claws fumble with the horsehair, weaving them into the base of a loose braid. The audino reaches up and guides his hands, mumbling something about seeing the humans do it this way or Foxglove telling him it’s that way, and together, quickly, a rope of purple hair laced with pink flecks of petal begins to form between them. Calyrex stands by, watching, waiting stone-faced, until the three other pokémon finally stop. Bill holds the rope up and examines it, then hands it to Lanette.

“That should do,” Bill says. “I don’t know if those are the exact Reins of Unity, but they should be sturdy enough to work.”

Lanette’s pale hands close around it. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means.”

Bill looks dead into Lanette’s eyes. “I have some idea. I take it we’ll be meeting again at this shrine?”

“Yes,” Calyrex says. “You will find its entrance at the summit of the tallest mountain of this tundra.”

It floats past Bill and points, and Bill follows its gesture to the sight of a snowy peak looming above Freezington and the forest beside it.

“Past the graveyards where we revived my steed,” it says, “past a forest, and through a cave of dragons and fairies. Beyond that, you will find the Crown Shrine. Bring the shaderoot carrot there. My speaker and I will meet you inside.”

And just like that, Calyrex and Lanette are gone again. Bill lets his shoulders sink. Snowy peak. Cave of dragons and fairies. Shrine where two legendaries will converge. He’s absolutely going to die.

“Right,” he says wearily. “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with.”

And he pushes off the ground and takes flight.


	12. Chapter 12

It takes the entire night for Bill, Foxglove, and the audino to make it to the Crown Shrine. It shouldn’t have, Bill knows, but it’s his body. He can fly, but not here, in other words. It’s the wind towards the top of the mountain, too cold and too bitter and too hard for his wings to handle. He tries, though, and flies just high enough to get a sense of where to go, but the cold drives him back down not even ten minutes later.

So they walk. They pass through gentle foothills where magmar and magmortar roam. They rest for a couple of hours on the banks of a river full of omanyte and lined with staryu. They forage for berries to keep them going through fields full of roaming abomasnow. Up a mountainside that rumbled with the footsteps of metagross (off which Bill could swear he sees the silhouette of Articuno itself), through a cave full of clefairy, and right to a birch forest where the ground moved with swarms of snom. He fights through all of these too, snapping the earth beneath his feet to down a metagross, shifting rock to ward off clefairy, biting and slashing his way through the magmortar, the omanyte, and the frosmoth. On and on, up paths he hopes will take him to Crown Tundra, though it’s harder to see the way from the ground than from above the treetops.

That it takes only a night is a feat in itself, but Bill has no time to marvel at this. He doesn’t have time to marvel at how much stronger he’s getting (enough to down a _metagross on his own_ , for one) or even to marvel at the sights or the silhouette of a pokémon that seems so familiar and rare to him yet not at all. And he tells Foxglove this at one point, that he can’t dwell on these things.

Because all he’s thinking about is Lanette. Lanette would delight at the staryu lights on the muddy banks of the river, glistening like rubies in the advancing dark. Lanette would love to get a closer look at the ancient temple the metagross are guarding, and watch them spider-climb up the rock walls like ancient machines, wary of the first humans they’d seen in millennia. Lanette would look up at the graceful, violet streak in the sky and hear its siren song, and she would tell him that can’t be Articuno in the strangely grounding way she does. She would love to watch the clefairy dance in their lines through narrow caves dotted with sparkling granite, and she would love the elegance of the frosmoth weaving between the thin trees, or the tiny snom faces wriggling through the snow.

That’s what Bill wanted when he brought her here. He wanted to share this with her. He wanted to share every peaceful, beautiful, utterly breathtaking moment of being here in the Crown Tundra with her, yet he can’t. Not now.

But it’s the thought that maybe he still can that drives him forward. The thought that he’d get her back, that he can fix this, that he can still share some part of this wondrous region with her—that’s all that matters.

So despite the fact that he’d only had a few hours of sleep—despite the fact that he had fought his way there, squeezed through a cave far too small for him, run from fairies and more—Bill stands before a cathedral at the top of the mountain wide-awake and ready.

And what a place for this to all end: an abandoned cathedral, long neglected and crumbling, yet still awe-inspiring in itself. Bill cranes his neck to take it all in, dark spires reaching into the gray sky above and all. It is, indeed, a place fitting for a forgotten god.

_Sir?_ Foxglove asks.

Bill glances back at Foxglove and the audino. He takes a deep breath.

“Well?” he asks. “Are you ready?”

The others nod. Their expressions are steady and steel, as if they’re silently pledging to walk into Hell itself for Bill.

He hopes it doesn’t come to that.

He leads them forward, into the dust and darkness of the cathedral. The interior looks just as abandoned as the exterior. Or, rather, unfinished. A set of stone steps inside lead up to what looks less like the interior of a church and more like a courtyard: a vast, dirt-lined space where a few dead saplings stretch towards a broken ceiling. On the other side of the courtyard stands a massive tree, whose roots reach halfway across the courtyard and choke the base of the saplings around it. Bill passes a basket by the top of the steps and moves to the center of the room, where he stares up at the leafless tree.

Then, upon feeling the air shift, he exhales slowly.

“Well,” he says. “Fitting shrine for a harvest god.”

He looks over to find Lanette sitting on a particularly large root. Calyrex hovers beside her, holding the reins in its thin paws.

“I do not understand your meaning,” Calyrex says.

“Never mind.” Bill removes Lanette’s headband from around his neck and holds out the carrot. “I’m here, and that’s the most important part. What do I do next?”

“Place the shaderoot carrot in the basket behind you, then come to me,” Calyrex says.

Bill raises his head, then turns to the basket by the entrance.

“Yes, human,” Calyrex says. “That one.”

“All right.” He glides to it, grasps its edge, and hesitates. “Fox? Audino? Go to Calyrex.”

He waits for them to move, but they do. The audino pads to a spot behind Calyrex and the root. Fox shifts through the air, giving Lanette a passing glance before joining the audino behind them. With his companions where they need to be, Bill places the carrot in the basket gingerly, and then, after a beat of silence, he moves to Calyrex’s side. Lanette slides behind the root and motions for Bill to join her, which he does.

“All right,” he says. “What—”

A whine interrupts him, and a gust of cold wind blasts through the cathedral. It’s followed by the cacophony of hoofbeats against stone, then dirt. Calyrex launches itself off the root and disappears over the edge, an act that’s followed seconds later by another bellow from its horse. Bill twists in his seat and looks over the root, just in time to watch Calyrex rope the reins through the horse’s mouth and pull. Another burst of air and shadow erupts from the both of them, but in a second, that doesn’t matter because Bill feels Lanette shift at his side. He looks down to see her sinking, groaning and grasping at her head.

“Lanette!” he gasps.

He dives down, curling himself around his partner. She blinks but stares at him blearily.

“Bill?” she asks quietly. “Why are you—”

“Oh.” He closes his eyes and shifts, and it comes naturally to him at last. His arms—human now—wrap tightly around her in an embrace, and then he places one of his hands on the side of her head. “Are you all right?”

She smiles weakly but nods. “Yeah. I knew you’d be able to do it.”

Bill stiffens. He’s about to ask her if she was conscious through all that, but before he can, a third blast of cold air rushes through the cathedral, driving Lanette into his arms with a shiver. He holds her protectively, then guides Lanette to her feet. The two of them look over the root together, to Calyrex and the horse, and … the legendary is different now. Calyrex sits, back straight and a regal air about its entire figure, on the back of the horse with a white cape about its shoulders. It regards them both with an ancient gaze and a wise smile.

_Thank you,_ Calyrex says. _I never would have reunited with my steed without you both. And now…_ It lifts one of its paws and flexes it. _I can feel my power returning to me._

Bill wants to tell the legendary off—which, he knows, is rather surprising for him—but he can’t. And he can’t because Lanette gets there first.

“Didn’t I tell you you shouldn’t underestimate either of us?” she asks. She supports one of her elbows with her wrist and places an index finger on her bottom lip. “Between Bill and me, a little fetch quest and a few battles are nothing compared to what we’ve faced before setting foot in this region, either separately or together. I’m not surprised Bill was able to do everything you asked him to do.”

Calyrex tugs at the reins on its horse to turn it to Lanette. And that’s when a shudder and a realization runs through Bill. As in: oh yeah. That’s right. These are a pair of legendary pokémon.

“What are you doing?” Bill whispers.

“Thanking you for rescuing me,” Lanette replies with a smirk. “And speaking of which, shouldn’t you do the same, Your Majesty?”

Calyrex’s eyes glint, but Lanette holds up a hand.

“Ah, ah, ah!” she says. “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime, if you don’t mind.”

“Lanette, normally, you’re the voice of reason between us,” Bill says quickly. “But this time around, I really must emphasize that this might not be the best idea of yours.”

Lanette quirks an eyebrow at him. “Isn’t it one of your dreams to have a legendary as your partner?”

And here, Bill gives her a strangled cry, which she promptly ignores in favor of turning back to Calyrex. She draws a poké ball from one of her coat pockets.

“So … there’s _one_ way you can show your gratitude,” Lanette says. “My partner came here to track down a legendary. You and your steed are legendaries. Bill and I challenge you to a double battle. If we win, Bill will get a chance to catch you both. Deal?”

After a beat, a smile plays across Calyrex’s face. _Audacious,_ it says.

“You’ve been in my head long enough to know that I can be,” Lanette replies. “Do we have a deal?”

_Fine._

Calyrex lashes the reins, and the horse whinnies and gallops to the other end of the room. The two pokémon turn, and Calyrex sits straighter.

_Prepare yourselves,_ it says. _When you make your first move, then our battle will begin._

At that, Bill grasps Lanette’s arm. “Lanette, I appreciate this, but are you sure this is a good idea? Are-are you even up for it?”

She smiles at him. “Of course. Sure, It’s freezing up here and I nearly got frostbitten, but I’m ready for a battle. You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this.”

Bill furrows his eyebrows at her. “Were you conscious that entire time?”

Grasping both of his arms, Lanette pulls herself up to give him a small kiss. “In a word … yes. It was sweet to see you stand up for me, by the way.”

Bill feels his face burn with a blush. Lanette slips her hands down his arms and into his hands.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go catch a legendary.”

And Bill stares into her eyes for a moment, and everything is perfectly fine.

“All right,” he says. “Fox? Audino? Let’s go.”


	13. Chapter 13

Violet fire erupts from Bill’s claws as he, once again a flygon, dives at Calyrex. He slashes at Calyrex’s crown once, but the horse rears back to block the next attack and kick out at the attacking dragon. Bill swerves in mid-air, trying to get behind Calyrex to sink a set of glowing fangs into the legendary, but it raises a paw and stops him with unseen hands. A blue light flares around its body as it swings itself and its horse around, and Bill follows this motion, flying across the cathedral and into a wall. 

Before Calyrex can recover, Lanette’s mega medicham appears in a flash above it with white orbs of light circling his body. Sam opens his palms at the legendary, and a beam of Hidden Power slams down into both it and its steed. The horse whinnies, but Calyrex holds the reins firm. With a twist of its paws around the reins, it summons a flurry of shadowy orbs to rush Sam and drive him back. The attack is cut off as soon as it begins with an explosion of pink light launched by Lanette’s alcremie, who sits only a foot away from Lanette herself.

Seeing her pokémon hold the legendary off, Lanette turns on her heel and runs to her partner’s side. She slides onto her knees and reaches for him, pulling him out of the dust and gravel that had once been part of the cathedral wall.

“Bill!” she exclaims. “Are you okay?!”

He groans but lets her pull him to his feet. Taking a shaking step forward, he shifts back to human, and Lanette catches him and holds him up. One of his arms hangs at his side in an odd manner, but his coat is too thick for Lanette to tell whether or not it’s anything to worry about.

“Oww,” he grumbles. “I’m going to regret that.”

He looks up and sees another volley of shadows pummel Mary this time. The alcremie squeals in pain and droops as soon as the attack lets up.

“That’s a ghost-type attack,” Bill says. “Audino! Attract!”

The audino trills in salute and jumps in front of Mary to throw a glowing heart at Calyrex. The attack washes over the legendary, who pulls at its reins.

_Did you really think that attack would work on me?!_ Calyrex bellows.

“Frankly? Absolutely not,” Bill replies.

Calyrex stops in its tracks at what Bill said, then summons another volley of shadows. The legendary swivels around to face Sam and fires, but the space Sam had previously occupied is completely empty. Instead, Sam reappears with Foxglove, the latter with his claws hooked around the mega medicham’s waist, in one of the ruined cathedral windows. He releases the Hidden Power forming between his hands a moment later, blasting Calyrex for a second time. Another piercing whinny tears through the cathedral, and Calyrex and its steed stumble out of the cloud of dust kicked up by Sam’s attack. At the same time, the audino finishes showering Mary with a soft, pink light, and Mary rises back to her feet. She leaps forward with a squeak and unleashes another blast of pink light into Calyrex’s horse while Sam and Foxglove charge up new attacks—another Hidden Power from Sam and a Shadow Ball from Foxglove.

And then, a wave of energy blasts from Calyrex, throwing Mary and the audino off their feet and dissipating Sam’s and Foxglove’s attacks before they could finish charging. Even Bill and Lanette have to crouch behind the short wall between the courtyard at the center of the cathedral and the shrine’s entrance. Bill wraps his good arm around his torso and winces at the movement, then forces himself to keep watch on the battle. Sam and Foxglove are back on their feet and charging up more attacks, but Mary? Mary is lying on the floor with the audino hunched over her, guarding her with his body. And Calyrex stands over them, shaking and leaning a little forward in its seat.

“They’re holding their own for now,” Bill whispers, pulling his eyes to Lanette, “but they won’t for much longer. What do we do?”

“The obvious,” Lanette replies with a smile.

She reaches into her pockets with both hands and pulls out a timer ball. Bill’s eyes widen at the offering.

“Before you say anything,” Lanette says, pressing the ball into Bill’s good hand. “Sam and Fox have it on the ropes. You can tell it’s getting exhausted. All you need to do is catch it, and this will all be over.”

Bill opens his mouth, but he stops before he says anything when Lanette squeezes his hand around the timer ball.

“I know you can do this,” she says. “Just take a deep breath and go.”

He closes his mouth. His eyes drift down to their hands, and he smiles. And then, he pulls his arm around Lanette and draws her in for a quick kiss on her forehead.

“You’re brilliant, and that’s why I adore you,” he says.

Then, Bill turns and mounts the stairs with the timer ball ready in his hand.


	14. Chapter 14

The rest of that morning was a blur to Bill and Lanette—a little bit literally too. Oh, the capture went surprisingly well—and the timer ball now sits on the nightstand in the Freezington cottage as testament to that—but it was the series of moments afterwards, the part where Bill passed out from the pain and the afternoon spent in a haze of painkillers and exam rooms that were a little bit harder to grasp.

And now, a few days later, Bill’s lying in a comfortable, warm bed with a hot cup of tea next to him … and one of his arms in a sling. Lanette is at the door, seeing one of Freezington’s best (and few) doctors in the village out.

“He should be fine to travel after another week’s rest. Just be sure that he doesn’t do any heavy lifting.” The doctor looks at his patient dead in the eye at this point. “And no more falling off cliffs either, you hear?”

Bill gives him a weary smile. “Noted. Thank you.”

And with another friendly nod, the doctor leaves. Lanette closes the door and locks it for good measure, then moves to the bed and sits down gingerly at the edge.

“So,” she says, “how are you _really_ feeling?”

Bill shifts one of his shoulders in a weak shrug. “Great. I can’t feel anything, and I can’t tell if it’s because I broke all my ribs or because of the painkillers.”

“It’s the painkillers, Bill.”

He snorts and tries to settle back in. “I’m kidding.” Resting his head on his pillow, he winces and wraps his good arm around himself, which Lanette instantly takes and lifts away from his chest. “Who knew Psychic would hurt so much?”

“Easy now,” she says quietly. And she pulls his arm down next to him and holds his hand. “I should probably apologize for that. If I hadn’t challenged Calyrex, maybe it wouldn’t have thrown you into a stone wall.”

Bill closes his eyes. “Could’ve been worse. I could’ve been human for that part.” He inhales through his nose. “Anyway, don’t apologize.”

Lanette smirks. “Why? Because you wouldn’t have gotten Calyrex if I hadn’t?”

“Well, that, and it was my fault this all happened in the first place,” Bill says. “I made you come here.”

And at that, Lanette bursts out laughing. Bill opens his eyes and gives her a curious look; he squeezes her hand at the same time to grab her attention.

“What?” he asks. “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Lanette eases her fingers under her glasses and wipes her eyes with a thumb. “It’s just … the entire idea that you _made_ me come here.”

“I did, didn’t I? I begged you to come here with me.”

“And you didn’t think I’d be able to say no to the Great and Charismatic Bill McKenzie?” Lanette’s smile widens. “Contrary to popular belief, Bill, you’re cute, but you’re not supernaturally irresistible. I could have said no.”

“And … you didn’t.”

“I was just as curious as you were. I just wanted to think about it for a second before rushing out after legendaries.” Carefully, gently, she lies down next to him. “It was worth it, though.”

“You were mind-controlled for half your time here, and you’re about to spend the other half looking after someone who’s managed to break all their ribs and an arm for good measure.”

“One of their ribs. The rest are bruised. Slightly better,” Lanette replies. “Anyway, maybe so, but there’s a benefit to this.”

Bill turns his head to look into her eyes, confused and curious. “Oh? What benefit?”

“Coconut milk hot chocolate. Quaint village. Snow on the holidays. And…” She squeezes his hand. “Spending the rest of the year with someone I care about. They have board games here, you know.”

Bill cracks a grin. “In other words, a vacation.”

“At last,” Lanette says. “Can you imagine anything better?”

He thinks about that for a second. He thinks about watching the snow with Lanette, with her leaning her head on his shoulder and with the both of them just still and quiet and enjoying some coffee on Christmas morning. He imagines their pokémon (maybe not Calyrex but certainly the others, the audino included), resting and curled up by the fire, and he thinks about all the quiet moments he, Lanette, and their teams will have a chance to just _enjoy_. And he realizes something important. 

No. No, he really can’t imagine anything better.


End file.
